KINDERGARTENS AND MANUAL TRAINING. 385 



as an element in human development is again being discovered, it 

 is interesting to find that the highest specimens of plain sewing, 

 shown as "prize exhibits" in the public schools where sewing is 

 taught, is a tiny pair of old-fashioned shirt sleeves, made with 

 straight, doubled and stitched wristbands, gussets overhanded 

 on and felled, and neat gathers, made by the formula " skip four, 

 take up two," and " smoothed " secundem ariem. The girl who 

 never uses a needle till twelve years old can not become a facile 

 seamstress. Every one is familiar with the early age at which pro- 

 fessional acrobats commence the training of their children. There 

 may be an inherited muscular aptitude, but the parents do not 

 rely upon that to make their son into an " infant prodigy." No 

 one needs be told that musical performers must get the music 

 "into their fingers" before they are stiffened and full-grown. 

 These persons illustrate best of all the subtle, inexplicable connec- 

 tion between brain and hand. What undivided attention does 

 the neophyte give to the striking of each separate note on the 

 piano. Those who have listened to much " practicing " know how 

 tiresome it is, until by unremitting iteration and repetition there 

 comes a day when, lo ! the fingers glide over the keys, touching 

 each minutest fraction of a note perfectly each in obedience to 

 its own nervous impulse while perhaps the performer is answer- 

 ing your questions on an entirely irrelevant subject. Mozart had 

 absorbed a knowledge of music by listening to the lessons given 

 his sister Maria, and had undoubtedly experimented by himself 

 till at four he played the piano with ease and expression ; and his 

 father having given him a small violin at six, he learned by him- 

 self how to play it, so that before he was seven he played his part 

 in a trio, reading at sight without mistakes or hesitation. The 

 musicians certainly know the value of manual training and give 

 a fresh emphasis to the old adage " practice makes perfect." Rev. 

 Dr. Parkhurst, in commenting on the accuracy of aim with which 

 David's stone " smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone 

 sunk into his forehead," an aim that presents itself to many minds 

 as supernaturally aided, said : " But it wasn't Ms first stone; he had 

 practiced while out there on the plains of Bethlehem watching his 

 father's sheep, and the unerring shot was the legitimate result of 

 long training." 



There is another aspect in which the introduction of machinery 

 needs to be considered by his country's well-wisher. In the Bos- 

 ton Conference on Manual Training, Colonel C. W. Larned, of 

 West Point, said : " There are altogether too few men in the 

 world who are skillful to do with their hands not to talk, or to 

 write, or to imitate but to perform with skilled faculties ; the 

 eye of that much-traduced creature, the average man, is becom- 

 ing more and more dull and indiscriminating, the hand increas- 



